Fight the Empire

We live in an empire that began 500 years ago with the European conquest of the Americas. This program looks at how the empire permeates our lives.

What are we doing in the world? What are we doing to the world?

George Kennan was an influential US diplomat during the Cold War years. It was he who devised the containment strategy against the Soviet Union (as opposed to a more aggressive rollback policy). In February 1948 Kennan presented a document to President Truman, Presidential Policy Statement #23, which includes the following:

"The US has 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which permits us to maintain this position of disparity...To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming, and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.

"We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans the better."

Some have claimed that Kennan was speaking as a foreign policy "realist," and arguing against an ideological anti-Communist crusade. That may be so, but his words are clear, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out. The US intends to keep for itself an unfair share of the world's resources. The main difference between the realists and the ideologues is one of tactics in pursuing this ignoble goal.

Host Per Fagereng ponders these facts and questions...
1. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed 46 years ago on April 4th, 1968.
2. The wars still go on.
3. Is President Obama afraid of the intelligence apparatus? Does he have reason to be afraid?

Host Per Fagereng interviews James Howard Kunstler about his new book, “Too Much Magic.” “Too Much Magic” is what Kunstler sees in the bright visions of a future world dreamed up by overly optimistic souls who believe technology will solve all our problems. Their visions remind him of the flying cars and robot maids that were the dominant images of the future in the 1950s.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University. His books include "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War."

Annie Machon was an intelligence officer with England's MI5. In the late 1990's she resigned and revealed secret operations, such as one to assassinate Libya's ruler Moammar Gaddafi. Is this kind of secrecy compatible with democracy? Tune in and find out.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with David Talbot, author of "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years." Talbot is a journalist and the founder and former CEO and editor-in-chief of Salon.com. "Brothers" details JFK's efforts to keep the country out of war and Bobby Kennedy's quest to solve his brother's murder. Talbot postulates that RFK might have been the victim of the same plotters he suspected of killing his brother.

Eva Maria, Venezuelan-born member of the Portland chapter of the International Socialist Organization, speaks at Portland State University May 29th, 2014 on current conflicts, the history and future of Venezuela's struggle to establish "Socialism for the 21st Century"

Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist and leader of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid, speaks to an overflow audience at Portland State University on May 13th, 2014. Abunimah has been described as the leading American proponent of a "one-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He was in Portland as part of a tour, sponsored by Haymarket Books, to promote his latest work "The Battle for Justice in Palestine."

Ashley Smith, author of "Obama's Pivot to Asia" in the current International Socialist Review, addresses the April 27, 2013 conference at Portland State University on "Palestine, Imperialism and the New Middle East" sponsored by Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (SUPER)

Todd Cretien, a long time Palestine solidarity activist from the Bay Area, writes for the International Socialist Review and SocialistWorker.org. This talk was given at the Portland State University conference "Palestine, Imperialism and the New Middle East", sponsored by Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights on April 27, 2013.

A panel at the evening plenary session of the "Palestine, Imperialism, and the New Middle East", a conference sponsored by Students United for Palestinian Human Rights at Portland State University on April 27, 2013. Speakers are Todd Chretien, Palestine activist and journalist with the International Socialist Review; Suzan Boulad, a Syrian-American involved in support to the revolutionary civilian councils in Aleppo and Idlib; Sarah Farahat, an interdisciplinary Egyptian-American artist whose works have been exhibited worldwide; and Kelly L, an activist with SUPER and the Portland Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, a shocking vision for our post-oil future caught the attention of environmentalists and business leaders.

In the seven years since its first publication, many of Kunstler’s warnings from The Long Emergency have proved prophetic, and now in his new book, TOO MUCH MAGIC: Wishful Thinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation, Kunstler argues there is now compelling evidence that the long emergency – a period of increasing resource shortfalls, gradual economic decline, and a forced change in humanity’s lifestyle – has already begun.

James Howard Kunstler was born in New York City in 1948. He is the author of eleven novels, including World Made By Hand and The Witch of Hebron, and four nonfiction books, including The Long Emergency.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Tom Engelhardt, co-author with Nick Turse of the new book, "Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050."

The drone has been a remarkable fantasy weapon -- our version of Terminator planet -- and a blood-stained one as well. Increasingly, however, its reality is proving grimly mundane and far less like that of a sci-fi movie. But drones remain the weak sisters of the weapons world. They tend to crash at an alarming rate due to weather, mechanical failures, and computer glitches, leaving shattered silver-screen techno-dreams of cheap, error-free, futuristic warfare in the dust.” The Holy Grail of drone ops, the ability of an aircraft to linger over suspected target areas for long durations, has similarly proven disappointingly limited.

In other words drones are quickly turning from can-do into can’t-do weapons. And yet, they are also proliferating. Engelhardt and Turse say tomorrow’s drone warfare will likely mean ‘more’ in one other area: more dead civilians.

Host Per Fagereng interviews intelligence historian Matthew Aid, author of INTEL WARS: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror, a detailed overview of U.S. intelligence since President Obama’s election which finds more problems than solutions.

Matthew M. Aid is the author of Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror (January 2012) and The Secret Sentry, the definitive history of the National Security Agency. He is a leading intelligence historian and expert on the NSA.